[portinfer]

Hi
Good idea to have a thread dedicated to gun building.
I have been trying to find out a few things for building an 80cm gun (see a post I made sometime on this site...).

Anyway, I have three peices of teak that have been planed to 18mm by 35mm by 1014mm.

I have some slow cure West System glue coming.

One of the laminates has a slight warp to it (about 2mm).
Is it better to have the warp one way or another ?
ie when I glue it is is better to have the warped peice in the centre or on the outside ?
is it better to have the warp with the ends touching or the centre touching (ie if it is an outside laminate to have it running convex or concave ?)

As for laminating...

Is it better to router the rail before laminating or to make the laminate of the 3 peices and then cut the rail ?

I am making a wooden handle from a lump of purple heart or maybe paduak.

I thought that as the specific gravity of teak is about 0.65 then the purpleheart at 0.86 should give the gun a better balance.

As for balance....

I am making an 80cm gun with a 120cm shaft for quick tracking in the shallows and strong currents for bass here in Guernsey (sometimes as shallow as 80cm and with strong currents).
So the gun should have very good side to side motion but the up and down motion is not so important as you are usually level with the fish but they are making a pass in front of you sometimes quite quickly.

I thought to take the idea of the totemsub Guizzo (light gun with good tracking due to oval / squid shaped section) but to make the barrel more oval - more like the Abellan guns - but then taper it to a thin nose.

My question is this :
For balance for a gun like this does anyone have any advice ?
Do you make a gun with a heavy handle or do you need more wood than I am planning at the nose ?

Cheers
Ed
(No pics yet but when I get the glue I will get posting....)